(Un)Lucky You
by NotWeird
Summary: Qrow Branwen is weeks behind on grading and progress reports are due in two days. What's he to do except get some T&A to help him unstress- no, wait, a TA... which is, uh, what again? Oh, a teacher's assistant? Well, it can't hurt to try. [AU where Lumi gets thrown into the deep end as assistant to the least organized teacher at Signal Academy instead of detention.]
1. Chapter 1

**A/N** : Just something to tide you over :) halfway through with chapter 5 of Cobwebs and Crows sequel so expect it the second week of January at the earliest!

* * *

Qrow Branwen prided himself on his prowess in battle, his skill with sword and scythe and Semblance. He faced impossible odds and insurmountable obstacles only to come out the other side bloody and beaten but unbroken.

He only wished grading could be so simple.

The dark haired Weapons Instructor of Signal Academy laid his head against the edge of his desk and groaned. He was backed up by at least a week and a half thanks to the latest mission from Ozpin and preliminary quarter grades needed to be turned in _the day after tomorrow_.

Ugh.

"Knock knock," Taiyang's voice carried over Qrow's pleas for death.

"No," he deadpanned.

"Well I'm already in, so…" The blond walked closer. "What's got you down?"

"Grading," he huffed. "You'd think the principal would give me a break given what I do for Ozpin, but the woman is _relentless_."

He hummed. "I'm sure her relentlessness has nothing to do with the fact that you tried to give your entire class A's last quarter because you lost their exams and said 'creativity can't be quantified.' Or because you spiked the punch at last year's Vytal Festival viewing party. Or…"

"I get it, I get it," Qrow hissed. "How about instead of rehashin' my colorful history with the principal, you help me out, huh?"

His blond (idiot) teammate burst into laughter.

Qrow threw a pen at his head, which the brawler caught, only for the ink to explode in his hand.

Mildly vindicated, the red-eyed Huntsman leaned his head into his hand and watched the other man run around the room looking for a rag. When he found one, he turned to his mercurial teammate and frowned disapprovingly.

"Rude," Taiyang sniffed.

A shrug was his response.

He rolled his eyes. "Why don't you get a TA?"

"Tits and ass?" Qrow quirked a brow. "How is getting laid going to help- well, aside from the obvious."

"Do you _ever_ read the faculty e-mails?" He spit onto his palm and scrubbed at the dark blotch. "TA stands for Teaching Assistant- or Teacher's assistant, never could remember which- and you should totally get one."

He made a face at the thought. "Isn't that one of those over-achieving little suck-ups who whine about gettin' less than ninety percent on their tests?"

"No." He rolled his eyes harder than before. "Not usually anyways. They're just students who _assist_ you by grading things or logging things into the gradebook- stuff like that."

The salt and pepper (but mostly pepper, thank you very much) haired man rubbed his chin and hummed contemplatively.

"Don't think too hard, you'll hurt yourself," Tai drawled.

"Piss off," he grumbled.

"Whatever, you know you love me," he teased.

"Like a kick to the teeth," he pressed a sentimental palm to his chest.

"Yeah well," he gave up on cleaning his hand for the moment. " _My_ grading is done and Saf is an _awesome_ assistant, so suck it, bird boy."

"Shuddup, you over grown worm," he spun in his chair and dragged himself to his computer. "And help me get a TA."

The continued to banter as Taiyang walked him through the process. It was surprisingly easy- so easy, in fact, that he suspected no one had ever filled him in about getting a TA to help with his work load out of spite.

Granted, he had to sign a bunch of papers that boiled down to "blah blah, I won't sleep with students, blah blah, I won't show discriminate on the basis of blah de blah if/when a TA is assigned to me blah blah, etc." Most of it seemed like a rehash of his teaching contract.

From Tai, he found out that there were more students in the TA classes (it was a class? there was more than one?) than there were positions available, so his request would definitely be filled. Unless the counselor or whoever ran the class was pissed at him for something he had definitely done- that was always a possibility.

No matter, it was out of his hands now. He waved off his snickering brother-in-all-but-blood with a middle finger salute and went back to grading.

Ugh.

 **-[-]-**

Lumi walked into her last class of the day and took a seat at her usual out of the way computer. The last stretch of the quarter was approaching, which meant exams and stress, but she was lucky to have snagged an easy elective and thus had one less test to worry about.

Forty-five minutes into the period, Mrs. Huang strolled into the class and announced that Mr. Branwen was looking for a TA to help him during his prep period; did anyone want to volunteer?

The room fell silent as students exchanged Looks. Mr. Branwen was notorious for his flippant grading policies and general lack of organization. This close to exams, combined with the previous facts, meant that any TA he took on would be drowning in last minute grading and backlog. Hell, there was a rumor that he lost an entire class worth of exams last quarter!

Mrs. Huang looked around with a tight smile. "Anyone? At all?"

"I think Lumi would be a great candidate to help out Mr. Branwen," Claret shouted with vicious cheer.

"What a thoughtful suggestion, Mister Nox," Mrs. Huang's smile grew a little brighter. "Does that sound good to you, Miss Hazelwood?"

Lumi resisted the urge to throttle the smarmy boy who'd thrown her to the Beowolves. "Sounds great," she said with the widest smile she could. "I love his class."

The older woman clapped twice. "Perfect. Please go see him right away, and remind him about the TA paperwork." Her heels clicked loudly against the tile.

Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck.

Determined not to give away her true thoughts on the subject, Lumi quickly packed her things and slung her bag over her head. A few sympathetic classmates wished her good luck, while others shook their head in dismay. Claret, who disliked her (the feeling was mutual), waved as she left, his many dark bracelets clinking together.

Lumi, not above such things as petty revenge, used her Semblance to thicken the shadows beneath the boy's feet and his entire body shivered like death itself had caressed his innards with one long, bony finger.

Despite the spot of joy, her mind soon turned back to thoughts of her new assignment. The walk across the school felt longer in dread, but eventually she made it to the spacious workshop. She let herself in and looked around cautiously. "Hello?"

"Good, you're here," the familiar raspy voice of Mr. Branwen called from his out of the way desk. "You've got a lot to do."

She regretted ever signing up for the TA class.

Of course, she kept the thought to herself and instead said "Okay, where do I sit?"

Surprisingly, Mr. Branwen stood up from his office chair. He motioned to it with a flippant wave of his hand. "I'm a week behind in grading, so you're gonna enter in all the grades I have now. Then you can help me correct worksheets or whatever. You know how to do all that, right?"

Lumi fought down the smart alec remarks that sat on the tip of her tongue. "Yessir," she nodded sharply at him and strode across the space to take her seat.

"Ugh," he grimaced as he plopped down at a cluttered work table with his stack of papers. "Call me whatever you want, kid, but don't 'sir' me, got it?"

"Got it," she shoved her schoolbag under his desk and dragged the graded pile towards herself.

They worked in relative silence, aside from their mutual grumbling. At one point, the bell rang to signal (HA!) the end of the day but Mr. Branwen ignored it. To her credit, Lumi took one look at the pile of still unentered papers, sighed, and committed herself to finishing as much as she possibly could.

While she hadn't exactly jumped at the chance to be his TA, she didn't do things half-way and he was in serious need of help.

She trudged along for roughly an hour then stopped with a closed mouth shriek. The class assignment she'd created in his workbook, the one she had completely filled out and saved several times, was _missing_ from the menu. Hitting backspace, refreshing the page, and restarting the program did _nothing_ \- it was like the entire assignment never existed!

"Fuck you," she hissed quietly at the buggy program. "And whoever coded you."

"You talkin' to the computer?" Qrow scrawled a red "12" across the top of the worksheet and looked at her with a raised brow. "I don't think it talks back."

She flashed him a tight smile. "It deleted an assignment I just finished."

He nodded and glanced at the clock. "Uh, I think you can go home now, if you want," he choked. School had been over for more than an hour and he hadn't noticed.

"Thanks, Mr. Branwen," her smile became more genuine. She grabbed her bag and waved at him. "See you tomorrow."

"See ya tomorrow," he shot back.

Lumi didn't look back. Now that she wasn't hunched over a keyboard, her back was killing her and she was on the verge of starvation. She was profoundly grateful Signal was a boarding school so she didn't need to make an hour long flight home to eat. Hopefully the cafeteria was still open…

 **-[-]-**

The next morning she rolled out of bed and stretched like a cat. One look to her mirror, where her class schedule was taped, revealed that she had Combat first period and Weapons Shop second period then lunch. Since today was a "B" day, that meant both classes were the usual hour and a half long instead of A-schedule's hour and a half plus fifty five minute combo.

For some reason, Weapons Shop was sticking out in her mind. Did she have a worksheet due? Or maybe a quiz? She pondered the thought as she gathered her toiletries and nearly screamed when she realized why she was thinking of Mr. Branwen's class.

She was his new TA and he was a miserable, unorganized mess. Lumi spit out her mint toothpaste and grimaced in the mirror. If she was lucky, he wouldn't pull her away from the day's assignment to do more TA stuff.

If.

She finished brushing her teeth, rinsed her mouth twice, then attacked her two-color hair with wide toothed comb. The usually mischievous waves had apparently decided that her day was going to difficult enough because they settled with minimal fuss into a high ponytail with braids running along either side of her crown.

It almost made up for the grading hell she was going to experience at the end of the day.

Almost.

Combat class passed like usual for B-schedule; warm-up, drills, spars, cool-down, showers. Mr. Xiao Long bragged that his youngest daughter _and_ his grandmother could run laps around them, so they better HURRY UP.

Lumi didn't feel like becoming a Teaching Moment™ so she picked up the pace and by the end of class was grateful to hit the showers. Her mood on the walk to Weapons Shop was buoyed by the natural high that came from exercise. So buoyed, in fact, that she was twenty minutes into class before she realized that Mr. Branwen was hunched over his desk grading papers and entering them into the gradebook like a madman.

The assignment on the board was to read a section in the textbook and answer questions one through five- or maybe it was eight? possibly even three? What number was that?

She was not willing to do more work than necessary- especially because she was going to have to grade it later- and gathered the will to ask her teacher what their assignment was supposed to be.

"Mr, Branwen?" She spoke quiet enough that the other students wouldn't overhear her. "What's the assignment?"

"It's on the board," he grunted and scrawled a "9" across the top of a paper.

From her vantage point she could see that the stack was not alphabetized. "But what does the board _say_?"

He glanced up at her, then board. "Pages 113 to 128. Questions one through- ?" He furrowed his brow. "Four," he declared after a moment.

What a mess.

She went up to the board and rewrote the assignment legibly. The words were slightly crooked and irregularly shaped, but it was leagues better than Branwen's straight yet illegible chicken scratch.

He either didn't see her fix the writing, or didn't care, but she was happy because his lack of attention meant that she didn't have to grade papers too.

The bell rang for lunch, and no one hesitated to book it before Branwen could assign homework; Lumi included. Her luck had run out, however, because the rest of her day sped by with a vengeance until she was left standing in front of the shop door as a stream of students hurried to class behind her.

She dreaded the workload, as she had done all day, but pushed open the door anyways and walked in- to an empty classroom.

Where did her teacher go...? No matter, she sat in the warm (ew) office chair, minimized his emails (there was one from Mrs. Huang about TA paperwork) and pulled up the gradebook. There wasn't a lot of new assignments, but if he really had spent all day grading then that was okay.

Lumi finished inputting the grades for the assignment Branwen had been working on before he left, then saved a copy of the gradebook to the desktop. Now that she wasn't as rushed or stressed, she remembered her father's many rants about idiots who didn't save their work or make backups but expected him to work "programming magic" to make the files come back.

She then turned her attention to the messy piles and started organizing them class and date. Once done, she arranged them alphabetically then turned a critical eye to the classroom. It was messy, but personal code of doing every job to her best or not, there was no way she was going to clean Branwen's classroom.

He still hadn't shown up anyways.

Rather than condemn herself to boredom, she pulled out her Scroll, stuck a pair of earphones in, and played her most upbeat playlist as she worked. She fell into a mindless cycle of grab paper, check name, check grade, enter, put aside, and repeat. Every so often she would break the pattern to save her work to both the desktop and the program itself.

Almost a full hour into her work, Lumi stopped to remove her earphones and stretch. She tucked her arms behind her head and pulled her elbows up and back. Her neck followed naturally as she hummed low in her throat in relief. She spun around once, arms thrown to the side, then stopped and nodded at the man in the class with her.

Wait.

Lumi bit back a scream and chucked the mouse at him.

Mr. Branwen snatched it from the air and raised a brow at her. "What, did you see your grade or something?"

A beat passed. "No, I tried to read your handwriting," she said. "As you can see, it came to blows."

He nodded sagely. "Whiskey's better for stress, but whatever flies your airship."

Was… was her teacher encouraging underage drinking? Or just confirming rumors?

"I'm nearly done entering everything in," she motioned to the mostly neat stacks. "But can I ask you a quick question?"

"No guarantee I'll answer, but shoot." He unclipped a silver flask from his hip and took a swig.

What the hell. Was he for real?

"Do you have a system of organization? Of any sort?" She knew the answer in her heart but wanted desperately to be proven wrong.

"Nope," he popped the "p."

Well there went that. She had a wild, ephemeral vision of the classroom at the end of the year, everything labeled, organized, neat and clean. Mr. Branwen had stopped drinking in class and wore a cape that wasn't torn and tattered. She had a 10,000 Lien gift-card to Mocha Mania. It was beautiful.

The hallucination ended as quickly as it had begun. Experience reminded her that you couldn't change people, no matter how badly you wanted to; they had to do it themselves.

But that didn't mean you couldn't help them along… or trick them into it.

"Okay, well I'm almost done, but I am a little hungry…" She commented with a small smile.

"Nice," he nodded. "When you finish the cafeteria'll still be open."

You fucking prick; learn to take a hint, she seethed then wondered where all the aggression had come from. Probably from sitting too long. Or working while _the teacher_ was off drinking. Or hunger. It could be anything.

"Great," she emphasized the "t" and fluidly turned back to the screen. She placed her earphones in, chose her favorite punk rock band, and continued working.

Qrow pattered around the workshop, cleaning in starts and stops. The entire morning and half of lunch had been spent grading, an activity he didn't like on a normal day and that no amount of alcohol could make him enjoy. He took a long lunch and messed around on his Scroll (damn the content blockers on the computer) for the duration of third period.

Third period was first years anyways, and they didn't have enough nerve to yell at him for eating in class or ignoring them.

He was surprised to see his new TA (what was her name?) working when he walked in from his second lunch. He hadn't gone to a primary combat school, but he knew for a fact that at her age he would have been doing anything other than work if he could get away with it.

Qrow wondered what terrible accident was about to occur to balance out his stroke of good luck.

Lumi imagined a terrible accident wherein Mr. Branwen's weapon stopped working in the middle of a demonstration and fell to pieces in his hands. Mr. Xiao Long, the Combat Instructor he was sparring against, then knocked the dark-haired man across the room and claimed victory for the match. When the Weapons Master went to buy himself a consolation- whiskey? sandwich?- his card was declined and he was sent away in shame.

She relished in the petty revenge fantasy for only the briefest of moments. She must have been really hungry if she was daydreaming this much in one day. While she usually ate during fourth period regardless of it was A-schedule or B-schedule, she only ate half her lunch on B-days.

Eating a full meal after Combat class was a one-way ticket to overeating and getting sick. She learned that after one too many lunches where she was "starving no matter how much she ate" and was left half-curled into a ball an hour later when the true size of the meal hit her.

Serving sizes for aspiring Hunters in training were ridiculous, but necessary because of the demands Aura and combat placed on their bodies. If a combat school student, tried to go on a civilian diet to "slim down", they'd get sick almost immediately and start passing out at random.

She liked to think they'd go crazy long before they wasted away to the point of dying because at her current point in time she was willing to stab a man for a sandwich, and she'd at least eaten a little under three hours ago.

Lumi saved the assignment she had just finished and reached for another stack, only to find nothing. She turned in her seat to check and saw that, yup, there was nothing. She was… done?

That was almost too good to be true, but she wasn't going to look at things too closely. If there were any suddenly blank assignments or a power outage that downed the gradebook program, it wasn't her responsibility anymore.

She shoved away from the desk and grabbed her bag before she could talk herself into double checking everything. She threw her Scroll and earphones in their designated pocket and looked around for her teacher. He was flipping all the chairs on top of the tables in a well-practiced, effortless motion.

"I finished. See you Monday, Mr. Branwen," she called over her shoulder.

"Bye… chickadee."

She ignored the odd hitch in the middle of his farewell and made a beeline for her dorm room. School wasn't technically over yet, but for all the work she did it was over for her. Once in her room, she scarfed down three chocolate chip and peanut butter granola bars and transferred her homework from her schoolbag to her pre-packed "going home" backpack.

An airbus left from Patch to the City of Vale, and vice versa, every turn of the hour and despite the fact that she had to go visit her mother this weekend, she was excited to be going home to her siblings and dad. More importantly, home to her dad's cooking.

She salivated at the thought of savory pulled pork sandwiches all the way to the bus stop.

Meanwhile, in the workshop she had so quickly escaped, Qrow stood scratching the back of his head. He needed her to do something, but couldn't remember what. It was "important" and "couldn't be turned in past the deadline- I mean it, Qrow."

Oh well. The fact that he couldn't remember it meant it was unimportant, contrary to Ember's claims. He shrugged and went to sit at his desk. His quiet little assistant- whose name he couldn't quite recall- had taken over the space, but it was neater than he'd seen in it months and the area around the computer was clear so he didn't care too much.

Hell, she could've cluttered it up more and he still wouldn't have cared as long as she finished up the grading. That was the least enjoyable part about being a teacher (beside the meetings-ugh) and the more of it he could shove off on her, the better.

He kicked his feet up on the desk and leaned back with a content sigh. Ah, now that that nightmare was over he could focus on important things- like going to the bar to (hopefully) find himself a lovely woman to go home with.

The dark-haired Huntsman pulled out his flask and Scroll and proceeded to do what he did best when ignoring his responsibilities- pester Taiyang.

He was mildly surprised that the blond had texted back so quickly, but then he saw what time it was and remembered that the last ten minutes of Combat classes were set aside so the kids could (hopefully) shower. Sweaty teenagers roaming the halls was the last thing anyone wanted.

The bell rang and not five minutes Ember Huang casually strolled into the empty Weapons Shop.

"Hello, Qrow," she smiled sweetly at him.

Uh oh.

"Do you have those forms I asked for?" she leaned over his desk.

"Remind me, what were those for again?" He remained nonchalantly reclined.

Her smile tightened. "For your new teaching assistant."

"Ah, yes… Chickadee." What was her name?

The older woman raised a bewildered brow. "Chickadee? I sent you Lumi Hazelwood."

Bingo. "She just looks like a chickadee, ya know?" He nodded at his assessment as if to reassure the other teacher that he did, in fact, know his TA's name.

"I don't see how," she drawled.

"Black hair on top, grey under," he motioned vaguely. "Like a black cap chickadee."

"Indeed." She pursed her lips. "Overly _familiar_ nicknames aside," she placed one hand on her hip. "I need her signed contract and yours- both paper and electronic versions. Otherwise, you can go back to grading alone."

Damn, he only had a TA for two days and she was already trying to take her away? He'd never done anything to her. (He ignored the memories of the time he snuck dye into her conditioner just to see what color her orange hair would turn, and the time he'd filled in as counselor in her place and somehow convinced the top student of the year to drop out and become a painter, and the time he…)

Unjustified harassment, he thought, from a fellow educator. How shameful.

"So soon? I just got her." He gazed up at her with a faux hurt expression. "But fine, you'll have them next week."

"Next week?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "They're due _today_."

"Well, I would turn them in now, but you see…" He trailed off, looking for an excuse. "She didn't sign all the pages so…"

"Was she not just here, helping you?" The brown eyed woman stared him down. "Why didn't you have her sign everything then?"

Fuck. Take a hint, lady. "She looked sick, so I let her go early."

"She was sick?" Her tone spelled out her disbelief. "Fine, if that's your story. Lucky for you, I have flight a catch in about half an hour for a conference, so make sure those papers on my desk before school starts on Monday _or else_."

"Will do, have fun, bye," he shot back with an obviously fake smile.

As soon as the door closed behind her he was taking a hit from his flask.

He'd have her papers for her, and a few other things, too, like an ass kicking. She played the cool, open-minded counselor to the kids, but she was harsh and unrelenting towards people she deemed "unworthy" or "irredeemable" (like him.)

Two-faced counselors aside, he actually did want to keep his TA around. It was somewhat risky given his Semblance, but Signal was a combat school and not a Hunter academy so it was unlikely that she'd be attacked by Grimm in her sleep- unlike him and his teammates when he'd been in school.

He pushed aside the bittersweet memories and turned to his computer to look up "Lumi Hazelwood." (Chickadee fit her better, but whatever). Her school picture showed her with all grey hair, which prompted his memory of all relevant details he knew about her. It wasn't much.

Her weapon was a collapsible police baton- that he was mildly concerned over being stolen equipment but not really- and it turned into a bow. A little unusual, given that most people adopted some sort of gun in addition to their main type of weapon, but she didn't talk back when he disassembled the wreck her first prototype had been and made the changes he suggested so she was okay in his books.

Better than the kid who showed up with a trumpet, at least. He shuddered.

Qrow took note of her dorm room number, grabbed the paper contract and headed out. The halls were mostly clear, because it was Friday, but smalls groups still lingered around doorways and water fountains.

For as little as he cared about his "image" (unless it was to make himself seem cool) it made him feel like a perverted old man to be heading towards the girl's dormitories despite his honest intentions. However, there was nothing to be done for it except to shift into crow form and fly his way there. He shifted back a few feet off the path to the brick building and walked up.

His nieces were as young as some of the girls who eyed him with mistrust, but he tried not to take their suspicions personally. He definitely wouldn't be there unless he needed to be.

Eager to get the awkwardness over with, he charged ahead with his usual nonchalance- only to be stopped by a girl half his height in the first floor lounge.

"Hi, Mr. Branwen," she began. "What are you doing here?" Her smile was sharp and mildly threatening.

He'd seen Raven absolutely thrash a guy for following her around. Telling this kid it wasn't any of her business would do him no favors and might possibly be a danger to his health, veteran Huntsman or not.

"I need Hazelwood to finish filling out her TA contract," he lifted the thin sheaf of papers as proof.

"What room is she in? I'll bring them to her," she held out her hand.

He hesitated. "Room 310. They need to be signed now," he explained and cautiously handed it over. There was still the electronic version, but he could email her… after he looked up her school e-mail.

"No problem," she chirped and spun on her heel.

He shoved his hands in his pocket and took a seat. A few awkward minutes later, the teal haired girl came back and shook her head.

"She's not here," she returned the contract. "Her roommate said she goes home for the weekend."

"Thanks anyways," he called and strolled out.

Well fuck. Of course his Semblance would act up now of all times. He sighed, then shifted to bird form and flew to his room. He'd just have to hunt her down on Monday.

 **-[-]-**

Spending time with her mother was as much of an ordeal as Lumi had expected it would be. She arrived at school Sunday evening mildly injured, annoyed and exasperated, but her foul mood left her as she caught up with her longtime friend, Calypso, over dinner.

The taller and tanner girl brought her up to speed on the drama of last week and gushed about the upcoming fieldtrip to Beacon Academy, then speculated what this week would hold. Noteworthy news included break-ups, make-ups, new relationships, and most importantly, a new rumor about Lumi and Mr. Branwen.

"What."

"Mm, apparently he went to your room and wasn't seen again," Calypso informed her with a grin. "Your roomie was locked out the whole day."

Lumi stared intently at her with a slowly furrowing brow. "I left before school ended. Did anyone even ask Amaryll?"

"Of course not." She clenched her hand into an impassioned fist. "No fact checks- we die like Huntsmen!"

The grey and black haired girl lowered her head to her hands and contemplated her entire life.

"Cheer up," she patted her back. "At least when everyone comes by tonight to pick up their goods you can tell them all about your romp with the weirdest alcoholic on campus."

"Excuse me; what." She lifted her head to stare at her good friend of two years. "If Branwen was really sleeping with students he'd be in jail already." Or dead, she admitted to herself, because even criminals hated child predators.

The white-haired girl waved her off flippantly. "Details, details."

"Facts, facts," she mocked.

Her eyes rolled dramatically. "Well only a few people were saying it, so maybe it won't be that bad?"

Lumi sighed and stole a buttery roll from the other girl's plate. "I hope so. If I'm right, I'm going to be spending a lot of time with him. I'd hate for people to get the wrong idea and have to have the truth beaten into them..."

"Mm," she hummed. "Anyways, did you do any designing when you were home?"

The conversation drifted to lighter topics for a while then the two walked to the dorm hall and parted ways. Lumi trudged up the stairs to her room where a couple of her regular customers were standing and chatting. She waved at them and they responded with various flavors of "hello."

Time to start dispelling rumors.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N** : This is a discarded draft of Cobwebs and Crows so it's only four chapters (and about 20k+ words) long. Even still, I hope you enjoy what might've been!

* * *

The time she'd taken to inform key individuals that rumors of things going on between her and Branwen were just that- _rumors_ \- was spent in vain because on Monday morning Mr. Branwen appeared out of nowhere on her way to breakfast.

He fell into step beside her, cape swaying behind him in all its tattered glory, and told her to check her email for the electronic version of the TA contract. She needed to sign it and the paper copy during breakfast, then get it into Huang's office before the bell rang. He handed it over, told her to have fun, and left.

What was happening in her life? Had she unknowingly broken mirrors? How did he think she was going to get into the counselor's office? Huang had emailed all of her TA classes to say she wouldn't even be at school until midway through first period.

Lumi puzzled over the dilemma throughout her first serving of breakfast. She still didn't know how the hell he expected her to get into the office- lock picks? break the window? uninstall the door?- but she remembered that her Semblance was shadow manipulation so she could walk through one shadow into another and drop everything off that way. She could also hide _in_ the shadows if anyone came in.

She signed both copies and left breakfast ahead of schedule to do as she planned. The hallways were practically deserted near the guidance office, so when she finished she continued on her merry way to History. The class was abuzz as everyone caught up with tales of their weekend or compared homework (or, in the case of a few slackers, tried to wheedle someone's work to copy).

She cast a critical eye on the classroom's set up. Colorful maps and posters lined the walls. A trio of tall, overfull bookcase were tucked in one corner. Next to them were two waist-high bookcases that ran almost the full length of the back wall, stocked with textbooks, atlases and biographies.

On top of one of the short but wide bookcases was an assortment of school supplies: staplers, a 3-hole punch, tape, tissues, etc. On the other was four stacks of paper trays that were separated by period and schedule (1A, 3A, 4A, etc). The first two stacks fell under a banner that read "TURN IN" and the other two identically labeled ones were under "RETURNED WORK."

The desks of the class were arranged lecture hall style, with two seats to a fixed table placed in curved rows that grew wider the further back/up you went. The teacher's desk was off to the side while a podium stood on a raised platform in the center of three boards. On Ms. Aryl's desk was a collection of books, papers and at least five different highlighters.

All in all, a pleasant and organized classroom. There wasn't much else she could say about it except to point out how much nicer it was than the grungy weapon workshop and Branwen's own lack of order. Seriously, the man's class was a mess.

Lumi took her seat and pulled out a notebook. She ripped a page from the back, then flipped to her current page. She spent the class period scribbling ideas of how to improve Branwen's class on the spare page while also taking notes. Second period was Combat, so she put the issue from her mind. She had a bad habit of zoning out when she thought about something too hard, and in Mr. Xiao Long's class slowing down meant more laps.

At lunch she cleaned up the scribbly mess of arrows and cross outs and turned it into a legible list. On the left were supplies, like paper trays, and on the right were ways to run the class, like turning in work in alphabetical order. She nodded at the paper, pleased with the result, then shoved it back in her bag when Calypso showed up to eat.

They chatted for a while about what they did during the weekend (Calypso had taken her girlfriend, Briar, to a movie, and spilled a large soda on her) and despaired about the upcoming end of the quarter/semester exams. Calypso kicked around the idea of a study group on (maybe?) Wednesdays- with twenty other people.

Lumi held back a sigh and tried to explain all the reasons why a twenty two person study group wouldn't work, but Calypso saw her girlfriend and left the conversation.

Rolling her eyes at the lovebirds, she went to grab another chicken breast sandwich then messed around on her Scroll for the rest of lunch.

 **-[-]-**

Mr. Greene's class was more reflective of a typical classroom, she remarked to herself as she walked into third period. Instead of a lecture hall, everything was on one level and there were groups of tables dotted about. The back wall was covered in tall bookshelves, except for at the very center where a table stood covered in stacks of different handouts and two wire trays. There were quotes, writing tips, reminders to not damage books, and a few examples of student work plastered on the walls.

As a Language and Literature teacher, he loved to have group discussions and group projects and group presentations- it was a little annoying at times, but it was kind of fun. She plopped down in her assigned seat (oh yes, Greene did assigned seating) then took out her notebook and the "fix Branwen's class" brainstorming sheet. She worked on refining the two lists in the back by outlining what she thought could be realistically implemented, and what was just wishful thinking on her part, until class ended.

Instead of heading straight to Branwen's class, she took a detour to the supply room to grab a few things- emphasis on _few_. She filled out the once-a-semester online form to let the system know who she was and what teacher she was the TA for. It directed her to a terms-of-use type page that said "I'm not stealing these things; the teacher sent me; these things will be used for the class, etc." She accepted the terms, waited a couple seconds, then finally opened the door.

So much hassle for two wire paper trays, an assorted pack of binder clips, a pack of small sticky notes, and an all-purpose document/letter sorter. She scanned the five items to update the supply list and left.

The document sorter was a complicated, confusing mess if you'd never seen it before, and she'd grabbed the most complicated, confusing type she could find- mostly to be funny. Ms. Aryl used a similarly complex one to sort all the work students turned in, but she doubted Branwen would use it at all.

Lumi thought about using it once or twice, just to see his face.

"Hello, Mr. Branwen." She ambled into the class and placed the supplies on the work table nearest his desk. "What are we doing today?"

He eyed the pile suspiciously. "What's all of that?"

"Just some things to make grading easier." She smiled and picked up the document-sorter.

It was a flat, three-inch wide, two foot long piece of hard plastic with thirty two individual flaps. Each flap was labeled numerically, from one to thirty two on the bottom and one hundred to three thousand two hundred in the middle. Each flap was also labeled with a letter of the alphabet, while the first twelve also had the months of the year written on them. Flaps twenty five to thirty one were labeled with the days of the week but the thirty second flap said "next month."

It was, in short, overly complicated and far too complex for any use she could think of short of becoming an accountant or a meticulously organized serial killer.

Qrow's face twisted as though she'd brought a Grimm into his class. The plastic monstrosity looked like something Goodwitch would use as a weapon- all no-nonsense colors and disciplinarian clacking. He made a mental note to never introduce her to the concept of… whatever it was Hazelwood was holding.

Also, he still remembered her name, so go him.

"Look, chickadee, I don't know how you think that's gonna make grading easier," he motioned to the many toothed monster. "But knock yourself out- just don't expect me to use it,"

"Are you sure?" she pleaded with her eyes. "I got it just for you…"

Ugh, no, not The Eyes! It was his only weakness against young girls- except this wasn't one of his adorable nieces, just a random student.

"I'm sure. Keep it." He was immune to her little ploy.

"Okay…" she sighed to keep up the act and put it on the table. Now that she'd had her fun, it was going back in the supply room as soon as school was over.

"I assume from the fact that Ember hasn't come knockin' down my door that you turned in the paperwork?" So much trouble for a couple of signatures.

"Yup," she unloaded the two trays, then grabbed one and brought it over to the small printer. "But how did you expect me to get into her office?"

He looked at her oddly. "What do you mean? Don't you just," he motioned upwards with both hands. "Walk in?"

"Well, yes, usually," she admitted as she opened up the printer to take a few sheets of copy paper. "But she wasn't in this morning because of a counselor conference she went to."

"Then how did you get it onto her desk?" He scrutinized her. Was his quiet little assistant more than just the over-achieving suck-up he thought all TA's were?

"I just walked in," she avoided his gaze by meticulously folding a paper in half, short-edge to short-edge. Fuck, she'd said too much. She should have kept her mouth shut. Idiot!

"Uh-huh," he drawled. "You wouldn't happen to have a set of lock picks on you right now, would you?"

She gave him a bright smile, but said nothing, and continued fiddling with the paper and tray.

Interesting, he mused internally. Qrow shrugged and turned back to face his computer. If she didn't want to let him in on how she broke into the counselors office, that was her business. He didn't particularly care enough to dig.

They worked in silence for a couple of minutes. When Lumi was satisfied with her work, she brought the newly decorated basket to Branwen's desk and set it on the corner.

He looked away from an email and straight at her. "What are you doing?"

It was at this point Lumi realized that she probably should have asked before she started moving his things. She just wanted to make things easier for him (and herself) but maybe he didn't want her to? She held up the wire tray and pointed to the paper she'd taped to the front, which read "Turn In."

"I figured that instead of everyone throwing their papers on your desk, a basket would cut down on the clutter." Her heart was thumping painfully in her chest.

"Then what's the other basket for?" He jerked a thumb at the table.

"For return work," she clutched the "turn in" basket between her hands.

Oh Oum, oh Oum, oh Oum- had she fucked up? Was this the part where he told her to get out? Or yelled at her for insulting him- did she think he couldn't do his own damn job?

"Cool," he went back to his e-mail and started deleting ones from Huang.

She left the basket in place and set to working on the other. Her anxiety was for nothing it seemed, as he didn't say anything more on the subject and eventually the ball of nerves in her stomach unclenched.

Lumi pulled out the slightly cold pulled-pork sandwich from her bag and ate in-between grading last week's work.

"You got any more of those in your bag?" Branwen called from his desk, flask in hand.

She jumped and looked at him guiltily. "No…"

"Just my luck," he grunted and took a swig.

The nerves were back in her stomach, along with a sinking sense of dread. No longer hungry, she rewrapped the sandwich and shoved it back in her bag. Weekends with her mother always left her emotionally frail and brought the intense fear of displeasing authority figures back to the front of her mind.

She hated it. Lumi wanted desperately to regain her equilibrium and leash her fear, but _wanting_ wouldn't help her nerves recover faster. She just had to wait a few days and keep as calm as possible in the meanwhile.

Psychoanalysis over, she organized the papers from second period alphabetically then graded them according to the key Branwen made. By the time the class, and school, was over, she'd gotten through a decent amount. There was still a backlog from the week preliminary grades were due, but with nearly two hours a day dedicated to helping grade and logging those grades in, she'd be up to date soon.

"See you tomorrow, Mr. Branwen," she called as she left.

"See ya, chickadee," he shot back.

Her steps faltered for a second. She hadn't noticed earlier, but… had he given her a nickname? Her feet led her to the supply room to return the sorter then to her dorm even as her mind wandered. Last week when he called her that, she thought it had been a fluke maybe; a one-time thing because he'd forgotten her name. Yet he called her "chickadee" three times today.

Well that certainly wasn't going to help rumors. No matter, she'd done what she could to combat gossip. It should die out quickly considering that people had just come back from the weekend and were more concerned with their own lives than unfounded rumors.

She waved hi to a few familiar faces on her way to the third floor and was grateful that she'd made her bed that morning. She flopped onto it face first and sighed. Her whole body loosened in the hold of her many pillows and freshly laundered comforter. She lazed in bed until her roommate walked in, then got up and pulled out her homework.

The quarter (and by extension, the semester) ended in two and a half weeks' time, and most classes were shifting gears in preparation. She spared a moment of pity for the TA's that were about to be flooded with late work on top of their existing duties, then remembered that she was a TA, wondered how she had forgotten, and pitied herself.

At least business would pick up. She had a false-bottomed trunk full of single serving bottles of whiskey, bourbon, and vodka in preparation for finals season and an eye on a pair of front row tickets to a musical for her younger brother's birthday.

Lumi definitely had her work cut out for her in all areas. Well, she thought as she cracked open her vocabulary book, no way to it but through it.

 **-[-]-**

By Wednesday she had cleared the backlog for Branwen's class and was pleased to find herself with twenty minutes of free time before the bell rang. Her teacher was off doing… something, but she wasn't sure what. He had literally said he needed to go do "something" and left.

Eccentric alcoholics aside, she was feeling pretty good. Her usual spell of anxiety from visiting her mother (another eccentric alcoholic) had mostly passed and she had access to the materials room with no one around to stop her. With a grin, she crossed the threshold and settled herself at a computer.

Last year, she had been traveling between Vale and Signal every day for school. It'd been a one hour trip each way, and she'd had to get up before the sun to make it on time in the mornings. In short, it was miserable. During that time, she'd met a third year with a travel mug that never seemed to go cold, unlike her own which turned from fresh made and piping hot to lukewarm over the course of the ride.

Towards the end of the year, she'd finally gathered up the courage to ask them what brand they used and had been shocked to find out that they'd made it themselves. The older student had sent her the file they used to make the mug, and explained that the inner chamber of the mug was detachable from the outer cup.

The design, which they stressed had to be made of metal, was so they could add a pinch or two of burn dust into the outer cup and cycle bursts of Aura through it when it started to go cold. The dust had to be the lowest grade, so it wouldn't explode, and she couldn't continuously pump Aura through it or it would fizzle out too quickly and probably burn her hands. In addition, the outer cup had to have a vent near the top so it wouldn't create a vacuum and implode.

It was ingenious, and Lumi vowed to create her own as soon as possible. Unfortunately for her, Branwen was vigilant in his supervising the use of 3-D printers and fabrication machines and didn't tolerate any horseplay or misuse of materials. But since he wasn't there…

She pulled up the design from her e-mail and loaded it into the 3-D design program. She looked it over for design flaws, and double-checked that the wire skeleton didn't touch at any point except the rim. Satisfied, she got up and fed one of the fabrication machines a sheet of aura conductive metal from the scrap pile. To a different machine she fed a sheet of non-aura conductive metal, then sent the order to begin cutting and curving the metals.

The first machine would make the outer chamber and the second would make the inner cup. Aura conductive metal was more expensive than its non-conductive counterpart, and while she was fine with wasting scraps to make herself a mug, she didn't want to use than she needed to; a considerate rule breaker, if you would.

To two 3-D printers she sent the plans for a plastic lid, and a silicone band that would go around the center of the mug to further minimize the chances of her burning her hand. And because she was paranoid about her coffee-lover of a father stealing it, she made sure that the band had "Lumi H." embossed on it.

While everything was being made, she poked her head back into the workshop and saw that her teacher was still away. Ten minutes later, everything was done. She assembled the cup in the workshop at her usual seat, afraid that Branwen would show up at any moment. He didn't, and when the bell rang he still hadn't.

Weird. Should she stay and wait for him? She debated with herself, but decided that no, she shouldn't. There was no telling when he would return, and she had exams to study for. Also, a cup to test.

The next day in class, Branwen looked somehow more tired and disheveled than usual. As it was a weapon maintenance day, he walked around the tables and gave commentary. The first fact, combined with the second, meant that his commentary was less "fix this, change that" and more "interesting choice" and "my youngest niece did better work when she was eleven, but nice job."

In other words, he was being a dick. Lumi made sure to give him no reason to come near her or criticize her work, but fate was not on her side.

"Hey, minion," he leaned against the table. "Go grab me something from the cafeteria, would you? I'm starvin'."

Was he for real? How was she supposed to smuggle it all out? Her Semblance, obviously, but it's not like he knew she could do that! Despite that, she agreed to go and quickly cleaned up. Appeasing irritated adults, especially foul tempered Hunters, was a skill of hers that had been honed by years of dealing with her mother.

On the walk there, she wondered if he thought she was some sort of criminal because of her slip-up with the paperwork and locked office. She was, a stock of illegal owned alcohol gave her no room to deny the assumption, but she wasn't the kind he was thinking of.

Whatever, she wasn't going to fix his view of her by asserting an equally incriminating truth. Also, he was in a shit mood and any excuse to get away was a good one. She could just work on her weapon during fourth period if this trip took too long.

Lumi ducked into an empty hallway and crawled through a shadow. When she reached the other side, she pretended that she was tying her shoe then stood and followed the circuit of students grabbing food from the buffet style lines. Luckily for her, students who were using Aura ate a lot so the school provided trays to carry dishes around on instead of just balancing things in their arms.

She grabbed a couple "salad" bowls, filled one with fries and the other with pasta. Unsure of what he liked, she also grabbed a few fried chicken sandwiches and slices of pepperoni pizza. Sides, sandwiches, pasta, pizza- what else? Oh, dessert!

She squeezed a couple of fudge brownies onto the heavy and almost overflowing tray. Branwen would have to get his own drink, but she doubted that would be a problem for him. She walked to an out of the way corner and through the shadows to the same hallway she came from. She would have just appeared in the classroom, but she didn't want people screaming at her and talking about how she could just _appear_ out of nowhere.

Lumi let herself into the workshop, with some difficulty, and ignored her bewildered classmates as she set the tray on Branwen's desk. He immediately ignored the student whose weapon he had been picking apart for every flaw and barely grunted thanks before he began scarfing down the food.

What a mess of a man.

The grey and black haired girl reclaimed her seat and took out the parts of her weapon she had yet to work on. Before she could do more than just that, Slate jeered at her.

"What, are you his pet now? He tells you to fetch and you do?"

"Oh, it must have been _so_ embarrassing for you when he was pointing out _all_ the flaws in your weapon," she placed a faux-sympathetic hand to her cheek. "No wonder you're still so _hurt_ over it."

He bristled and turned red. "Whatever- don't fucking talk to me."

Lumi had the idea to spike his food with laxatives, but dismissed the thought as not possible- for now. Her next trip to town she would definitely pick some up. Or, maybe those sugar-free gummy bears she'd heard so much about online? She always did wonder if they were as bad for the stomach as reviews said…

Lunch came quickly, and third period sped by. Feeling as though she'd just left, Lumi walked into the weapons workshop and took the seat nearest the desk. From her vantage point, she saw that Branwen hadn't taken the dishes back to the cafeteria and sighed.

It wasn't her problem, she reminded herself. She'd gone above and beyond by getting him food to begin with. To distance herself from the issue, she took out her weapon and continued working on it. She pressed a pair of buttons to transform the collapsible baton into a pre-strung bow and flinched in pain when the bowstring snapped and sliced a line up her face.

The weapon fell from her loose hand with a clatter as she placed her other hand to her bleeding wound. What the hell? She had used the bow all last weekend, fighting Grimm in Forever Fall with her mother, and it had been fine. More than fine, actually, considering how new the string was. Did the spooling mechanism malfunction? Or had something about the transition between forms overstress it?

Alone, bleeding, and slowly realizing that her hand was insufficient to stem the flow, she lifted the hem of her shirt to press against the steadily closing wound and continued to think about what could have possible gone wrong.

It was at that moment that Qrow walked in, saw her exposed chest and choked on his drink.

She jumped slightly at the sound and lowered her shirt. "Are you okay, Mr. Branwen?" She asked and instinctually got up to walk closer.

" _Are you decent_?" He coughed and beat a hand against his chest.

"Uh, yes?" What kind of que- oh, yeah, she had her top up when he walked in. Didn't he have nieces her age? Surely a bra wasn't that shocking of a sight…

He turned and nearly had a heart attack. The sight of her with her shirt down wasn't any less shocking because _blood was smeared across her face_.

"So is this a new sort of fashion statement?" He motioned vaguely at her and kept his eyes trained on her face.

Lumi looked down at her outfit self-consciously, then realized that he was probably talking about her bloodied cheek. "My bow string snapped," she explained, jerking a blood smeared thumb at the offending weapon. "And cut my face."

And what a cut it had been!

"Which is weird because it worked just fine last weekend…" she murmured and brushed her fingers against her slightly stinging cheek.

"Yeah," he drew out the word and strolled to his desk. "Maybe go clean yourself up?"

"That's probably a good idea," she nodded, then regretted the action as it made her dizzy.

Lumi traipsed out the classroom, leaving Qrow to his thoughts and his booze.

The sight of a shirtless woman- hell, the sight of a _naked_ woman- neither shocked, alarmed nor impinged upon his _delicate sensibilities_. He might have an "inappropriate" sense of humor, a general disregard for what was "proper" and maybe shouldn't be around impressionable young children (which, hey, he was training Ruby and she was doing fine, thank you very much!) but-

He tried to remember where he was going with this. Oh yeah, he might have been all those things, and have a chronic weakness to short skirts, but he was not into _kids_ and ruthlessly quashed any accusation of the sort.

His response to Hazelwood nearly shirtless had _not_ been one of awe and lust but rather one of absolute " _what the fuck"_ ness. His TA was more than likely some type of criminal, but she was quiet and well mannered (boring, he thought, despite the interesting bit about breaking into Huang's office) and definitely not the type to randomly strip in class.

The blood had been even more surprising, if only for how out of place it was. He took another long pull of whiskey and relaxed in his seat. Weirdness of the situation aside, he was tired as all hell and wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and pass out for a few hours. Ozpin had called him to the field to look into "a matter of utmost importance to the continued safety and security of Beacon" which required his "considerable skills" and "absolute secrecy."

The crafty old owl wanted some less than reputable businesses and their owners investigated for being potential human traffickers, and as his literal eye in the sky, Qrow was obliged to do so despite the fact that he had classes.

With a TA to do his busywork, it was less of an imposition than it had been before, but he still needed to write up exams for the end of the semester and that wasn't something that could be done overnight.

He briefly toyed with the idea of making his quiet little assistant do it, but threw the thought away when he realized all the problems of having a student write an exam she would then have to take. Well, he could consult her on the first and third year's exams, to catch typos or something.

Vague plan made, he pulled out his Scroll and decided it had been long enough since he'd last pestered Taiyang that he could do it again and still get invited over for dinner later that week. Being a bachelor and spymaster didn't leave him much inclined to cooking, especially since any leftovers would likely rot in his fridge before he remembered them. Thankfully, his old teammate was a great cook and his two adorable nieces were always happy to see him.

 **-[-]-**

Lumi cleaned herself up in the bathroom then stepped through a shadow to her dorm room and changed clothes. The dizzy, light headed feeling from earlier had passed and the cut across her face had faded to a mostly healed, red line. She reappeared in the bathroom then walked to the workshop. When she opened the door, Branwen was chuckling at his Scroll and still hadn't returned the dirty dishes to the cafeteria.

Not her problem, she reminded herself with a firm mental nod. Besides, her weapon was technically out of order and it wouldn't do to be caught unprepared in case Mr. Xiao Long called her to spar. Mind firmly made up, she retook her seat and picked up her bloody, internally damaged bow.

Whoops, she maybe should have brought it with her when she left to clean up. At least the workshop had a deep sink and plenty of rags.

The dark haired duo mutually ignored each other in favor of working on their own things. It wasn't until Lumi had taken apart her weapon, put it back together, and made it swap between forms a couple of times that Qrow wandered over and decided to help her.

Only, she didn't exactly _need_ help because her weapon was completely fine and even when she restrung it nothing unusual happened. After a few more shifts, Qrow disassembled it for himself and put it back together with Lumi leaning against his side to direct him what it was supposed to look like.

"What is wrong with it?" She hissed and gripped her head in exasperation. "There's no way a new string would just snap like that- especially from just transforming once in class!"

"Look, chickadee, maybe it just a stroke of bad luck," he sighed internally at his troublesome Semblance. "And nothing's wrong with it."

"Or," she countered, "There is something wrong with it and it'll manifest when I need it to least."

He shrugged.

Just then, the door opened and a honeyed voice cooed, "Oh my, how cozy."

Lumi looked over her shoulder to see Mrs. Huang standing in the door with her arms crossed.

"Hi, Mrs. Huang," she smiled despite her dislike of the older woman. "Mr. Branwen was just helping me fix my weapon."

"Oh?" She raised her brow and looked between them.

Branwen was seated on the stool, legs splayed and body turned towards her and the newly strung bow on the table. She was leaning, perhaps a little closer than she should have been, in his personal space with her body turned equally towards the weapon.

Qrow narrowed his eyes at the judgmental counselor. "Yup," he popped the last letter. "Whaddya need, Ember?"

Her gaze was skeptical but she didn't push the issue. "Principal Blossom and I were talking about taking the students on a tour of Beacon, to motivate and inspire them, when we noticed that you hadn't chaperoned any school events yet…" She smiled sweetly.

She wanted to do this now, in front of a student?

"I'm grateful that you came to ask me in person," he continued with a tight smile. "Instead of over e-mail."

"Well, e-mails seem to get lost when it comes to your inbox," she countered. "I figured I would get an answer this way."

Lumi had gone as still as possible after Mrs. Huang had walked in and activated her Semblance. Her childhood had been spent between arguing adults and her desperate desire to hide had given her the ability to "suggest" to onlookers that there was nothing to see.

"Mm," he hummed and picked up a screwdriver. "I'll think about it."

"Unfortunately, I can't give you all that much time to think," she drummed her fingers against her arm. "We need to finalize the chaperone list as soon as possible."

"What day is it on?"

"Next Friday, after third period," she informed him with a smile.

Qrow wasn't exactly the most knowledgeable when it came to school policies and procedures, but even he doubted that the principal and school counselor could "suddenly" plan a fieldtrip less than two weeks before the day of said trip. Whatever. He was tired and not at all in the mood to deal with her.

"Sounds great," he turned away and grabbed the bow. "E-mail me the details."

Huang took it for the dismissal it was and sauntered out.

He sighed heavily when the door closed behind her, his long night and stress having caught up with him.

Lumi dropped her Semblance and cleared her throat.

Qrow glanced at her, and found her further than he remembered. "Yes?"

"Can I have my weapon back?" She spoke calmly and evenly, afraid to worsen his mood.

He handed it over and stood. She backed up even further, despite not needing to, and took her seat when he went to his desk.

The air had turned awkward after the counselor's visit and uncomfortable insinuations. Nothing of the sort was happening, which they both knew, but the thought was there and it soured the formerly calm, companionable mood.

Lumi bid her teacher a subdued "bye" as soon as the bell rang and scurried out. She felt like no matter what she did this week, rumors and assumptions hounded her and her teacher's interactions. Didn't people have anything better to do with their free time?

She trudged up the stairs to her dorm room and laid in bed when she got in. At least tomorrow was Friday.


	3. Chapter 3

The weekend at home had done Lumi good. She returned to school with an upbeat attitude and a promise from her dad that he'd show up at Beacon on Friday during the tour. It was nice of him to do so, because she wouldn't see home again until finals finished up on Wednesday of next week.

Well, they technically finished on Thursday of next week but her 4A class and 4B class were both TA periods with Branwen. If he didn't keep her to grade (and she doubted he would because his exams were multiple choice type affairs which could be scanned) then she could go home Wednesday night.

The thought of going home early and spending two weeks doing nothing kept her mood up despite all of the review work she had to do. Even the still circulating, slightly wilder rumors about her and Branwen didn't bother her as much.

Things had returned to normal between them, which she was thankful for because last Friday had been unbearably awkward. They didn't talk much, but it wasn't a bad thing considering that she was busy grading and he was busy doing… stuff.

Come to think of it, she didn't actually know what he did when she was working. She hadn't been his TA for that long (only a couple of weeks) and he often left partway through class. She wanted to ask him but kept her questions to herself. Because she stayed on top of grading, and because he didn't give nearly as much that Aryl or Greene did, she usually had free time to work on whatever she wanted to and that was nice.

This was one gift horse she wasn't looking in the mouth.

On the day of the fieldtrip, she sent both her siblings a picture of herself holding up a peace sign and sticking out her tongue with the caption "Fieldtrip 2day, hv fun in class losers."

Not to be outdone, Ash sent her a sketch of a dented trashcan captioned "U." Less artistically inclined, Nocte took an expressionless selfie and said "Hope u fall down."

Ah, the sweet tender love between siblings.

She showed the pics to Calypso, who shook her head at their antics. Briar, on the other hand, flashed her a thumbs up.

The airbus ride to Beacon took a little over an hour and a half. Lumi entertained herself by mindlessly exploring the internet and chatting with her friends. She also took discreet pictures of Branwen, who looked like he could be made of stone for all the expression he had. He didn't want to go to begin with, then Mrs. Huang had sprung it on him Thursday of last week and had- bullied?- him into chaperoning.

They landed, stretched their legs, then met up with Team OSHN, who were fourth year students. Half of the group went with the O and S of OSHN, the other half went with H and N.

As luck would have it, Calypso and Briar had been sorted into the other group and her group was led by Hylan and Nori, with Mrs. Huang as the adult chaperone. Still, she wasn't too bummed out because they were all set to meet in an hour at the mess hall.

Lumi had lived in the City of Vale her whole life and had been on a few tours of Beacon as part of class trips in her younger years. All in all, the tour was pretty standard and she followed the older students as best she could despite not really listening to their speech. She did see some current students who had graduated from Signal and waved when they passed. For the most part they waved back.

When the tour ended at the mess hall, Lumi tore away from the group and searched for her dad. He hadn't texted her back once the entire day except to say what he was wearing (green sweater & black), which was pretty normal once he got into his coding "groove" but he had promised to be at the cafeteria at five o' clock.

She saw him from behind, talking to Mr. Branwen and rushed over.

"Dad!" She leapt at him and burrowed herself under his arm. "You made- it?" Lumi stared up at the man who was much too tall to be her father, despite his grey hair and nearly all black outfit with green on top.

Just to the side, Qrow was cackling madly, bent nearly in half.

"I'm afraid not, my dear," he went to pat her shoulder but she flinched and stepped back.

Lumi hid halfway behind her (asshole) teacher and stared at Not-Her-Dad suspiciously. "Who are you?"

He smiled gently. "My name is Ozpin. I am the Headmaster here at Beacon Academy."

Qrow sucked in a deep breath and stood up. "Oz, you didn't tell me you had a kid!" He nearly chocked on his laughter and leaned an elbow on Lumi's head. "What a precious family reunion."

For all the fieldtrips to Beacon, never had she once met the Headmaster and now she had and all she wanted to do was crawl into a deep, dark hole to die.

"Sorry, sir," she murmured from beneath Branwen's heavy arm.

"There's no need to apologize," his voice was calm and level as he took a sip from his mug. "Qrow tells me you're his new assistant?" He queried.

She tried to nod, but the weight of her teacher's _heavy arm Oum above what did this man eat_ prevented her from doing so. "Yes, sir."

He chuckled. "I imagine he has you doing all his work."

"Not all of it…" She wasn't sure how to answer. Was he trying to put her at ease after her mistake? Because it was not working and she 100% still felt like dying from embarrassment.

"Why, Oz," Qrow said through a chuckle. "I'm hurt. How could you think so low of me?"

"Indeed," the older (?) man raised a sardonic brow. "How could I?"

Her teacher apparently didn't care about the thinly-veiled insult, because he was still shaking with laughter.

"Nevertheless, how are you enjoying Signal, my dear?" He turned his attention back to her. "It is a fine academy, and many of the students here at Beacon are graduates."

"It's nice," she admitted. "The teachers really want to help us 'make the next step,' you know? Most of them, anyways." She side-eyed the Weapons Instructor who had forgotten she wasn't a post in the ground.

"Oh, no," he groaned sarcastically. "The Ozpin family is ganging up on me."

"Actually," an accented voice cut in. "That one's mine."

Lumi bent at the knees, which nearly made Qrow tip over, and lunged at her father- her _real_ father. "Old man!"

In a well-practiced motion, she wrapped her arms around his middle and they spun in a circle once before standing up. Side-by-side, Lumi and her father were a matched pair and it was easy to see how she had confused Beacon's headmaster with him- but only superficially.

Mr. Hazelwood stood just shy of six foot (shorter than both Branwen and Ozpin but still tall compared to Lumi's five foot three frame) with a head of spiky grey hair. He wore a green cardigan over a black band t-shirt and distressed black jeans. His sweater was pushed up to his elbows which revealed the sleeve tattoos on both arms.

Ozpin, by contrast, looked every inch a scholar and professor with his crisp blazer, pressed slacks, vest and glasses.

"Introduce me, starlight," he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Don't be _rude_."

She smiled as bright as her nickname. "Dad, this is Mr. Branwen- you remember him from the cafeteria thing?- and this is professor Ozpin; he's the Headmaster here."

Lumi motioned between her father and Qrow. "Mr. Branwen, this is my dad, Delphinus."

The men shook hands.

"Professor Ozpin, my dad," she motioned between the two grey-haired men and they also shook hands.

"Call me Del," he informed them.

"Qrow," the caped Huntsman offered with a nod. "So what's the 'cafeteria thing'?"

Lumi stared her father in the eye and drew a thumb across her neck.

"A secret, it seems," he laughed. "Little love, why don't you get me something to eat, hm? I came right after work."

She shrugged off his arm, "Alright. Nothing too embarrassing?"

He smiled enigmatically. "No promises."

Lumi eyed him suspiciously but left anyways. She knew where he kept his good coffee beans- he'd do well to remember that.

The trio of adults made small talk until Glynda Goodwitch arrived to remind Ozpin of a video conference. The Headmaster bid them both farewell and took his leave. By the time Lumi came back, her dad and her teacher were engaged in a (not so) subtle bragging competition about the girls in their life.

Qrow announced that his youngest niece, Ruby, had just built a weapon from scratch as a precursor to an even bigger, more badass weapon.

Del countered with Nocte knowing how to code and that she had won a contest for an app design last year.

Cute, but his other niece, Yang, could bench press a motorcycle.

One night, when some crook attempted to rob them on the way home from the cinema, Lumi fought him and broke one of his legs.

"Okay, okay," she rushed between them and shoved the plate of food in her dad's hands. "That's enough out of you, old man. Go sit and eat."

"Nice to formally meet you, Qrow," he waved over his daughter's two-toned hair.

"Same to you," Branwen threw out a cool two fingered salute.

She felt, in her bones, that she was going to be teased mercilessly when she got back to school. She pretended that if she ignored it for long enough, it would go away on its own and thus sat with her dad to eat an early dinner. There wasn't much to catch up on since her visit last weekend.

Her little brother and sister missed her, of course, and were sad that she wouldn't be coming home for a while, especially since she would be missing a weekend with their mother.

"But between you an' me," her dad whispered conspiratorially, "I think you're the lucky one!"

She smacked his arm and laughed, "Be nice!"

He chuckled and shoveled a spoonful of fried rice into his mouth.

Their dinner ended soon after, since Lumi had to be at the airbus before six and it was already a quarter till. Her dad kissed the crown of her head, wished her luck, and waved her off.

The ride back, Lumi cloistered herself behind Briar and Calypso- the latter of whom was in tears when Lumi told her how she had mistaken the headmaster of Beacon for her dad. Briar had laughed too, but the story had stopped being quite so funny a couple minutes ago and her girlfriend was still going.

Despite their enjoyment of her soul-crushing shame, they were the better option to being around Branwen, whom she was sure her father had spilled some "cute" tale of mishap with.

"Cute" here meaning "endearing and heart-warming as long as you weren't the one the tale was about, but if you were it was terrible and haunting."

Was it paranoid and assumptive to think he cared enough to tease her when, as previously stated, he wasn't around all that much to begin with? Probably. Did that ease her nerves about the _possibility_ of him knowing something embarrassing and teasing her with it? Haha, no, not at all.

When the airbus touched down on Patch, the shadows were barely beginning to lengthen in the setting summer sun- which was perfect for Lumi due to her semblance.

"Hey, so how much do you feel like walking?" She asked her friends with a smile.

"I mean, we were in the air for over an hour, so- wait, what are you getting at?" Calypso fixed her with a suspicious look.

"Do you have a car in your bag?" Briar raised a brow and pointed flatly at her cross-body bag.

Lumi rolled her eyes. "I thought you two were my _friends_." She gestured with one hand towards the dark outline of one tree. The shadows deepened and writhed in place. "Semblance, remember?"

"Oh yeah," Calypso nodded. "I kinda forgot- or, actually, I _repressed_ the memory because it was _terrifying_."

"Briar grows killer plants and shadowtravel is what scares you?" Lumi countered.

"Yes," she sniffed and wrapped an arm around her girlfriend. "Her plants are beautiful. Your shadows are weirdly warm and I'm pretty sure something tried to grab me last time."

Briar shrugged the taller girl off. "Well I don't feel like walking. Have fun by yourself, Cally."

Lumi grabbed the blonde's hand and stuck her tongue out at Calypso. The two took a step and sunk entirely through the floor. They reappeared on the side of the girl's dormitory. Briar blinked off the mild dizziness and let go.

"How long do you think it'll take Calypso to get here?" Lumi adjusted the shoulder of her sweater.

"Three minutes, if she loves me," Briar scanned the area. "Five otherwise."

She nodded and they made their way inside.

Shortly thereafter, safely ensconced in her room with WebFlix on her Scroll, Lumi received a text from Briar that said "4min." She laughed and started streaming "Grym and Ghastly."

 **-[-]-**

Saturday morning dawned bright and beautiful- not that Lumi would know because she and Calypso were running through a living obstacle course courtesy of Briar and her plant manipulation semblance.

Her evil, thorny semblance, Lumi corrected when a shuddering branch of brambles snagged against her hip.

"It'll be fun, she said," Lumi thwacked a branch with her baton. "A great work out to kick off a great weekend."

"It is fun!" Calypso yelped and ducked beneath a swinging vine. "I'm having fun!"

When they finally emerged from the other side, Lumi's entire outfit was wrecked. Calypso fared no better, covered in rivulets of blood and already healed gashes just the same.

Briar, on the other hand, looked like some type of nature nymph. Her wheat blonde hair was done up in twin braids, her face a picture of sweetness and frailty with half-lidded sky blue eyes and golden skin. A circle of wildflowers had grown around her.

"Disgusting," Lumi muttered and pick a thorny twig from her hair.

"Let's go again!" Calypso was pumped.

"Let's not, Miss 'I'm going to do my entire essay right after we work out'," she said.

"Do we really need to do Aryl's essay? Is it necessary? Can we pass without it?" Briar cut in. "Will it make us happy?"

"I could probably pass without it," Lumi stared at the not sweating, not bleeding girl. "You, on the other hand?" She made a face.

Briar sighed heavily and closed her eyes. The obstacle course shuddered and fell apart. Calypso and Lumi started a few cool-down exercises while Briar focused on cleaning up the now dead plants. The blonde ended up covered in a light sheen of sweat from the exertion, which Lumi felt was just unfair given the fact that Briar's plants had nearly ripped her shoulder from its joint.

The trio met up a half hour later in the library, armed with class notes, highlighters and homework. So passed a productive weekend. Well, productive for a given sense of the word. Lumi watched episodes of "Grym and Ghastly" between assignments and ended up finishing the season that she had started Friday night.

She was understandably sad when she realized this fact, but the success of her less-than-legal side job did much to brighten her mood. It was hard to feel down when she had a wallet full of Lien.

-[-]-

Monday morning found her staring down the doors to History with her essay in hand and a sense of readiness in her bones despite the undercurrent of anxiety running through her. She was ready to get testing over with.

Finals week was an odd affair, when she stopped to think about it. The mornings were reserved for A-schedule classes while B-schedule classes happened in the afternoon with lunch in between. The odd part was when students had repeats in their overall schedule. Lumi had History and Combat as her 1A and 1B classes, respectively, but she also had Combat and Weapons as her 2A and 2B classes.

Mr. Xiao Long solved the issue by making one day sparring and the other a paper test about battle tactics, but what about students who had double math? Actually, did anyone have double anything that _wasn't_ an elective or Combat? How did the school handle the weird, rotation schedule?

Lumi shook her head and refocused on the exam in front of her. At the conclusion of her math final, she walked over to the weapons class.

"Mr. Branwen?" She poked her head in.

He had his head tipped back with a flask in his mouth.

Lumi blinked owlishly at him.

He sat up and wiped his mouth. "First years," was the only explanation he gave. "Whaddya need, chickadee?"

"Actually, I wanted to know what _you_ need," she twirled a lock of dyed hair cutely. "Since tomorrow I only have your class, and I'm sure you don't want be stuck with me all day when you could go out and do stuff instead…"

He looked mildly amused. "Uh-huh, my needs? And if I need you to stay and grade finals?"

I'd scream and shadowtravel to Vale despite the danger to myself, she thought, only half-joking.

"I would totally help!" She smiled, perhaps a bit too widely. "But I'm sure someone like- a man of your- you've, uh, already finished grading?"

He cackled. "I'm just messin' with ya. Take tomorrow off- and maybe learn how to flatter a superior. It'll help you just as much as anything you'll pick up here."

"Will do, thank you," she chirped. "See you after break."

He waved. "See ya."

When Lumi arrived home, hungry after her long airbus ride, Ash was screaming and furiously dabbing a crumpled paper towel against the table.

Nocte, ever the opportunist, was recording him and giggling into her hand.

"I'm home…?" Lumi set her bag down and crossed the living room for a closer look.

Her usually not-so-screamy thirteen year old brother was the artist of the family, which led to several odd situations like his strongly worded rant about how classic art was "boring" and enjoyed by the "elites" for purposes of subjugating the masses by means of superior wealth. True art, he said, could only come from the uncrushable will of the working class and that was why he graffitied the side of the school with the phrase "YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR CHAINS."

Rebelliousness, it seemed, ran in the family.

Lumi looked over his shoulder and saw that he had spilled gold paint all over the table and a portrait of huntress he was working on. The huntress had several wounds, some of which were painted with gold, and was holding up the head of a Grimm.

Cool, she thought as she backed away slowly from her grumbling brother. It was good to be passionate about something.

"So, lil' bit," Lumi mussed her sister's naturally black hair. "Is there anywhere you want to go out to eat?"

Nocte hummed for a moment and tapped her fingers against her Scroll. "Can we leave Ash?"

"No," she deadpanned. "We have to bring him too."

"But I haven't seen you in _forever_ ," she protested. "And he's being _annoying_."

"Annoying?!" Ash turned his attention from the mess to them. "You were the one up all night screaming because you couldn't beat a level!"

Nocte was usually rather quiet, except when she played video games. She could rage with the best of them despite being nearly eleven and not allowed to cuss.

"At least I'm not screaming at paint!" she countered.

Lumi sighed as they continued arguing. It was good to be home.

 **-[-]-**

Of her two week and some days break, her siblings still had school for the first week and a bit so she was alone for most of the day. She woke late, fixed herself breakfast and lounged about until noon or so. Then she'd go to the gym and work out for a while before grabbing a shower and heading home. Sometimes she found herself wandering around the commercial district just to have something to do.

She wasn't bored, by any means, but there were only so many videos she could watch on UsTube before she needed a change of scenery. She would have tested her mettle in Forever Fall, but going hunting alone was risky; especially since she wasn't even a Huntress-in-training yet.

Speaking of Huntresses, she didn't her Hunter outfit yet, which was something she had been meaning to look into. Lumi pulled out her Scroll and opened up a map of the surrounding area. She could take a bus to the mall, or she could walk a few minutes south where a street of smaller, independent shops were.

She sipped the rest of her caramel frappuccino and decided that she wasn't feeling social enough to brave the mall on a Friday. She threw her empty cup away and followed the directions to Willow Street. The weather was a little too warm to be pleasant, but it was nice all the same.

On her way there, she heard a girl yelling from inside an alley, "Zwei, no! Come back here!"

She swiveled her head to the side, then down at the stubby-legged but quick black corgi. The girl was maybe twelve or thirteen, wearing a red cape, and not quite fast enough to catch the dog hell-bent on fleeing.

Lumi's big sister instincts kicked in as she lunged forward and snagged the end of the leash. The sudden tension in the line meant that the dog (Zwei?) got about two steps further then found himself being yanked back.

He barked in defiance.

"Oh my gosh, thank you!" The girl from the alley ran up.

"No problem," she wrapped the leash around her hand tighter.

The younger girl had shoulder length black hair with red tips and wide, light grey (silver?) eyes. Despite her obvious ordeal with the dog, she had a sweet, happy-go-lucky air around her and was smiling brightly.

Lumi was immediately suspicious. "Are you here by yourself?"

She shook her head. "No, my dad and older sister are here too- uh, not _here_ here because obviously but um," she bit her lip. "They're going shopping because my sister goes to Signal and she's growing out of her clothes." She motioned to her chest.

"I see," Lumi resisted the urge to laugh. "Well how about you tell me your name and I'll walk you back?"

"Oh! Yeah, my name's Ruby," she stuck out her hand.

"I'm Lumi," she shook it. "And this bad boy is Zwei?"

"Yup! But he's usually not so bad, it's just that my dad mentioned maybe taking him to the v-e-t," she stage whispered the letters as they walked back down the alley. "And he freaked out like he always does and ran away!"

Zwei had no defense for himself. He plodded along, looking sullen and cute.

"Is he going to the-there?" Lumi eyed the corgi in case he decided to bolt.

"No," she rooted around in her pockets and pulled out a Scroll. "Not till…" she looked at a calendar. "Next month."

"Why bring him along then? If you don't mind my asking," she watched the other girl's face to make sure she hadn't accidentally insulted her.

"No, it's fine," she enthused with a smile. "Well, since dad was taking Yang-" the name sounded familiar to Lumi though she couldn't place it- "shopping he decided he would take me too, but if we all went then Zwei would be all by himself! So I asked my dad if I could bring Zwei, and he didn't want to at first but then he let me as long as I kept him on a leash. But, uh," she rubbed the back of her neck self-consciously. "He isn't allowed into stores 'cause he's a dog, and not a customer, so I have to stand outside with him, which means I'm not… really shopping..." She had a light blush.

"It was nice of you to think of Zwei," Lumi offered. "I'm sure he appreciates not being left behind."

Ruby perked up. "I thought so too."

They walked a little ways in silence. Lumi noticed the other girl fidget with the hem of her shirt looking as though she wanted to continue the conversation but couldn't think of anything to say.

She decided to take pity on Ruby- she'd been there not so long ago. Hell, some days she was still there. "So what kind of clothes are you into?"

She looked surprised but covered it with a smile (she smiled a lot). "I really like Grimm goth clothes, but my dad says it's 'too grown' for me."

Her own father was into punk fashion, so she couldn't relate, but she was knowledgeable about Grimm goth considering that she'd started funding her sewing hobby with commissions for the subculture.

"Do you know Atelier Arachne on Timblr?"

Ruby's eyes lit up. "Yeah! I follow her on everywhere!"

It wasn't that surprising- the local community was pretty small. At most, everyone was one degree removed from another. Still, the kid was cute.

"Ta-dah!" Lumi held out her arms and nearly clipped a man in the face.

The younger girl looked confused for just a moment then she squee'd and jumped for joy. "YOU'RE HER?"

"I am," she preened slightly. It was doing her ego wonders to listen to Ruby gush about her designs. "And I'm actually out shopping to get inspiration for more outfits. Lucky coincidence, huh?"

By the time they made it to the store where Ruby's family was shopping, Lumi was knee-deep in talking about some not-yet-posted designs and the reasoning behind them. She didn't feel like it was anything special- just a comment here and there about what type of fabric she'd use, why this shape instead of that, some alternative versions of the same basic outlines- but it was apparently very special to Ruby.

"Hey, Ruby, who's your new friend?" A familiar male voice called from behind them.

Lumi felt an instinctive sense of dread in her stomach. That was a voice you didn't want directed at you unless you wanted to run more laps.

"Hi, Mr. Xiao Long," she cut into Ruby's excited explanation. "Fancy meeting you here…"

He looked far less awkward than she felt- nearly at ease, even. "I'm just taking my girls shopping. You know, some quality father-daughter bonding time."

"Dad you tried to throw money at the bra measuring lady and leave," Yang shot him down.

That's why the name sounded familiar!

Lumi was willing to overlook whatever her Combat teacher may have done if it meant going back to her shopping. "Well, I'll leave you three to your business…"

"Oh, yeah, uh," Ruby waved as she walked off. "See you later!"

A few streets over, closer to where she was originally supposed to be before the runaway dog mishap, Lumi tried to shake the very weird feeling of meeting a teacher outside of school. She knew teachers were people, that they had lives outside of school and all that, but knowing and seeing were two very different things.

She said as much when she texted Calypso and Briar- the latter of whom texted back "thats why I dont help ppl lol." Calypso demanded pics or it didn't happen, which, of course Lumi didn't have any. Who would just take pictures of their teacher taking his daughters shopping?

Speaking of shopping, she was supposed to be doing that. Lumi picked the closest store and started sorting through the racks, pulling pieces she felt were individually cute or would pair well with others. For her own Huntress outfit, she was leaning heavily towards a combat skirt, but the modesty shorts offered couldn't be overlooked.

Lumi moved a blouse to the side and froze in shock at the next item on the rack. It was Branwen's shirt. It was exactly his shirt, but in a women's cut. This… this was an opportunity. She rifled through to find one in her size, then hunted down a pleated skirt to match it. In her search, she found a pair of cargo shorts and immediately had to look for Mr. Xiao Long's shirt and vest to complete her teacher cosplay.

Parts gathered, she took over a changing stall and sent pictures to her two best friends.

"Xiao Long is my spirit animal" and "die a hero or live long enuf 2 c urself bcome Branwen" were her two favorites. Fun had, she put Xiao Long's outfit back and took Branwen's up to the register. Briar bet her 5,000 Lien that she wouldn't wear it to school, but Lumi was about to be 5,000 Lien richer.

Jokes aside, Branwen's shirt and Xiao Long's shirts were actually pretty similar? The v-cut front hem, the wide collar, the number and size of buttons and the paneling- she imagined that they shopped from the same catalogue.

She toted her new purchases with her as she window shopped- and actual shopped- in other stores. She didn't end up running into Ruby and her family again, but she was more than fine with that. She grabbed a few treats for Ash and Nocte, then headed home. It wasn't quite dark yet, but she didn't want to chance getting mugged even if she was armed.

Nocte was standoff-ish when Lumi got home, but Ash was happy to soak in Lumi's affection in her stead. Five minutes of cold shoulder treatment was as much as Nocte could do because she full-body shoved Ash away and wrapped her arms around Lumi with a glare.

Lumi laughed at the two of them. "There's enough of me to go around!"

"NO!" they shouted in unison and bickered about who the favorite was.

She reminded herself that she loved her younger siblings and didn't want to wring their scrawny little necks for always yelling because then she would miss them. Besides, it was a little cute.

"Fight for my love!" she cheered.

They turned on her and demanded that she tell them who her favorite was.

Whoops.

In any case, it was good to be home.


	4. Chapter 4

Lumi's last week of break was her siblings' first week of break, so when she woke up in the morning she was guilted and bribed into making breakfast instead of just giving everyone a bowl of cereal. After that, they either did something together, alone, or together-but-alone (which was to say, they were physically around each other but focused on their own thing to the point that they might as well have been alone).

One of those things that Lumi did was attempt to design some age-appropriate Grimm goth outfits for Ruby. It was difficult to do because Ruby was just so up-beat and peppy despite her awkwardness that Lumi kept imagining the clothes in pinks and white instead of reds and black. The outfits kept changing accordingly, and after two hours of fighting, she gave in and designed with the lighter color palette in mind.

When she had a good few pages, she went through and picked the ones she liked best, polished up the lines, and added color palettes that weren't pastel. Satisfied (or as satisfied as any teenage artist could be) she sent the batch in a private message on Timblr to Ruby.

The response came a few hours later, but it was about as enthusiastic as she expected. It was incredibly sweet and it only re-affirmed why Lumi started designing and sewing to begin with.

Mushy feelings aside, break was coming to an end and the weekend before she went back to school was one where she had to visit her mother. Joyous joy.

Visits with her mother included fun things like being dragged to Forever Fall forest at the ass crack of dawn and being told to fight Grimm, then sparring against her mother (who rarely ever stepped in to help Lumi with the aforementioned Grimm fights). Also, defending her siblings' hobbies and life goals because they were "weak" and "not a real career."

Verbena Hazelwood was not a kind, indulgent mother and no one could ever mistake her for one. Especially since, as Lumi had previously stated, she didn't step in when Lumi was struggling against Grimm and now the second year Signal student had a hole through her forearm where a Grimm had bit into it.

A rush of Aura kept her from feeling the wound, though she could see the blood gushing from it and exposed bone as she drove an arrow through the eye of the Grimm until it let go in death. The spar, at least, had been called off in the interest of getting her to an emergency room where it could be properly treated.

She spent most of Saturday in a haze between pain-killers, surgery, Aura healing, and local anesthetics while the wound was assessed after said healing. What should have been months of recovery were instead compressed to an intense day of healing, and a couple weeks of wearing bandages under a removable, 3-D printed cast. She also had physical therapy exercises she could do at home to regain strength.

Sunday was equally blurry but more so because she slept the day away and woke long enough to eat and take more pain pills. She barely remembered the airbus ride back to Signal, though she was sure she hadn't dreamt the whole thing up because how else would she have gotten into her dorm room?

On Monday she still felt dizzy, weak and in pain, so she stayed in and had her friends take notes for her. She was able to drag herself out of bed to eat, but had to take care when dressing and getting food because she technically had one functional arm. By evening, she felt well enough to shower and vowed to return to class tomorrow. The line of stitches on her arm would dissolve in their own time, and the livid red marks where she'd been hurt had faded to scabs; soon to be scars, then nothing.

As she laid in bed, she praised Aura and Aura healing and drifted off to sleep.

Lumi felt like shit when she woke, and nearly cried from the aching pain of her bones growing back together. Aura could accelerate healing, and temporarily dull pain so you could keep fighting, but it didn't stop the body from hurting completely unless you were a skilled healer or had the training of one.

She had some training, from necessity and her own innate curiosity, but she wasn't a qualified Healer and she couldn't keep up the concentration needed to do it all day. So, she laid in agony until her rudimentary skill kicked in, then rolled out of bed and popped pain pills. Pills, at least, required no concentration or skill to use and be effective.

Her classes were the same as last semester, which meant she'd be sitting out for most of first period Combat because today was B-schedule, but she didn't mind too much. Walking and mostly cognizant she may be, but ready for pushups and sparring she was not.

She got ready in starts and stops, in part due to her sudden one-handedness, in part to how dizzy the pain pills made her because she hadn't eaten yet. She settled on a loose t-shirt, fashionably large cardigan, and circle skirt with an elastic waist band. Clasps, zippers and buttons were a bit beyond her at the moment.

Lumi left her hair down and forwent her usual mascara. Hoping she didn't look as unkempt and unready as she felt, she smeared on a coat of tinted lip-balm and left to breakfast. She got a few pitying and/or curious looks on the way but no one approached her, which she was grateful about.

The cafeteria was packed by the time she made it, despite having woken up early to try and avoid the rush. She sighed internally and tried to grab as much as she could safely carry in one go. In the end, she had a couple pieces of toast, a banana, small bowl of strawberries and a bowl of cereal. It was a downright pathetic meal for a second-year student, which she rectified by one more round of food gathering.

Lumi sat down with her latest haul and tried to eat as quickly as she could without getting sick. For as much as her body needed the calories to recover, her stomach was finicky due to the pain pills.

Calypso and Briar must have already gone to class, or were going to be very late, Lumi noted as she cleaned up her dishes, because she hadn't seen them at all yet. Well, she'd just have to grab yesterday's note at lunch then.

She slung her schoolbag over her good shoulder and trudged to Combat. Her mother had the foresight, at least, to have Lumi excused from classes until she was sufficiently healed. She was going to be doing a lot of walking in the foreseeable future.

An hour and a half of modified exercises (mostly walking around the track) later, she made her way to the weapons workshop. Because she hadn't shown up yesterday for her TA class (or any class), this was the first time she was going to see Branwen since finals. Hopefully, he wouldn't already be backlogged with grading or need help setting up projects- it was only the second day of the semester.

She snagged her usual seat and pulled out a notebook. As long as today wasn't an inspection day or a maintenance day, she'd be fine.

Branwen strolled in just before the bell and dashed all her dreams. "Take a form, fill it out, and come up when you're done." He tossed the pile on the center table. "You'll be setting up an appointment with me for mid-year evaluations, starting Thursday and going for about two weeks. And lemme just tell you now, getting it out the way early would be best. I don't get any nicer the later you go."

The class erupted in frantic energy, whispering about maintenance they hadn't done and jostling each other to grab a copy. Lumi waited until the initial rush was over to minimize the chance of someone running into her, then grabbed a form.

Well, she technically got what she wanted. Today she didn't have to do any maintenance or have her weapon inspected. The trade off, of course, was that a significant portion of her grade was based on her being ready in the next week or so despite the fact that she barely had fine-motor control in her non-dominant hand.

Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck.

On the bright side, if Branwen was doing this for all his classes, her TA duties would be reduced to logging in grades, which she could do perfectly well in her current state.

Lumi carefully but quickly filled in her name, weapon's name, weapon type and alternate forms, ammo types it used (if any) and whether or not it was a Dust-caster. When done, she lined up and waited for Branwen to call her forward. A couple of students got sent back to re-do their forms, but a third of the class had signed up for their time slot before Lumi got her shot.

She handed over the paper and waited for his approval.

"Good to see you again, chickadee," he scanned the form. "Pick a time."

The last day was almost completely booked, and a few brave souls had even signed up for the first day. She mentally calculated how healed her arm would be against how likely her teacher was to be in a good mood. Those factors in mind, she crossed off Thursday and Monday. He'd probably be really harsh with grading on the last day, so she kicked Tuesday off the list too. That left Wednesday and Friday.

He'd likely be nicer on Wednesday, but picking Friday meant an extra two days of healing. It would be pretty pathetic if she couldn't shoot her own bow, so she picked the earliest slot on Friday and hoped that her broken arm and sewn together tendons would be healed enough for a shot or two.

He nodded at her and typed in the information. "Go sit and twiddle your thumbs or something."

She took off without another word. The thought of shadowtraveling to her room and spending the rest of class there crossed her mind, but she dismissed it as quickly as it had appeared. She could at least note what needed to be fixed, even if she was a few days away from actually working on it.

A few minutes later, Briar walked up and took the seat across from her. She slid over her notebooks from History and Literature. "So when are you going?"

"Friday, first thing," Lumi replied while clumsily moving things around. "You?"

"Thursday," she showed off one shiny hand-scythe. "I don't want to have to stress about it, especially since Greene wants us to do another group project."

"Wait, we have project in lit?" She stopped flipping through the history notebook.

The blonde nodded. "Something about how the author's life impacted their writing and how history shapes what's written about."

"Cross-unit with Aryl's class?" She raised a brow at the notes detailing the history of Faunus rights. Nothing of what they'd read so far had to do with Faunus of any sort.

She waved her hand from side to side. "Not really. More like some history as context for the books we've read."

Lumi nodded and started copying down the notes she missed. Briar occupied herself on her Scroll until Calypso showed up. The tallest of the trio was in a mild panic over the upcoming assessment, for no discernable reason other than the fact that she hated tests and exams of all sorts.

After Briar calmed her girlfriend down, the pair filled Lumi in on what they'd done over break until the bell rang. At lunch, Lumi returned the favor. Calypso was over the moon to hear about the bet Briar and Lumi had made, and was the arbiter when Briar tried to get her 5,000 Lien out of Lumi for not wearing the outfit.

To Lumi's defense, she couldn't exactly deal with a button down shirt at the present point in time, much less tights and her typical combat boots.

"True, true," Calypso hummed and stroked her chin. "Well, I would say you're off scot-free, buuut," she smiled wickedly. "I think the bet should be changed to you wearing the outfit for your weapons eval!"

Lumi nearly choked on her ice water. "What? No!"

"I agree," Briar, the treacherous girl, nodded.

"I don't!" She hissed.

"Two against one, Lumi," Calypso, also a traitor, chimed.

"You didn't put any money into this bet," the _injured_ girl crammed her mouth full of fries.

Calypso dug around her pockets and bag until she pulled out a 1,000 Lien note and pack of gum. "I have now!"

"I cannot believe," Lumi grumbled into her lunch. "The nerve of some people."

'Whatevs, either pay up or wear it next Friday," the tallest of them swiped a forkful of her girlfriend's cake.

Briar shot the other girl a dirty look and angled her plate away.

Lunch ended shortly thereafter, with Lumi unsatisfied about the state of her life and Briar listing things she could buy with 6,000 Lien. Calypso snickered under her breath when Lumi fixed her with an unimpressed stare.

Math that day was mildly difficult for Lumi because of her most recent dose of pain-killers, but she muddled through it well enough despite Ms. Tanner's concerned glances. It helped that it was both her last true class of the day and one of her shorter classes.

She walked to fourth period alone, after waving off her friends, and let herself into the class. It was empty, but otherwise the same as always; nine worktables arranged in a staggered grid, battered lab stools, and the scent of metal and oil in the air.

The familiarity was grounding. She ran her good hand across the tabletops as she hummed to herself and tossed her bag onto her regular seat. Lumi shrugged off her sweater and pulled out her homework for math, intent on getting it done or at least doing most of it before school ended.

Three problems in, the door opened to Branwen's confused face. "Who did you fight between now and the last time I saw you?"

She blinked owlishly. "No… one…?"

"Then how did you break your arm?" He strolled over to his desk.

"A Grimm, and I broke it last Saturday," she tucked a dyed strand behind her ear and avoided looking at him. "Did you really not notice until now?"

He shrugged. "Guess not."

So much for being a sharp eyed, veteran Huntsman, she thought with a tinge of venom. That was two for two of Hunters who failed to notice the obvious. She pushed the bitter thoughts aside and reminded herself that it wasn't Branwen's job to know about everything going on in her life.

Lumi refocused on her math and ended up finishing not long after. Granted, it was a review of what they learned before break, so it wasn't that hard, but still, she'd take any accomplishment at the moment.

Speaking of things that were good for her self-esteem, Lumi pulled out her Scroll and opened up Timblr to see the chat log between her and Ruby- who went by "RlyRlyKoolKid" on the site.

She was surprised to see that she had a new message from the younger girl, which asked if Lumi wanted to be a Huntress since she went to Signal? If so, did she already have a weapon? What kind was it and what was it's name?

She smiled at her enthusiasm and typed back a short, but informative response. To keep the conversation going, she posed the same questions back to Ruby.

Lumi didn't know the other girl's exact age, but it was safe to assume that she was in school and wouldn't respond for a while. To have something to do in the meantime, she refreshed Timblr and scrolled through all the posts she had missed due to her unfortunate but completely avoidable accident.

Bitter who?

She forcefully "liked" a post and reblogged it.

Okay, so maybe she was a little hurt over the fact that her mother, a retired Huntress and current member of the Vale police force, allowed her to come to preventable harm, but she'd dwelled enough on the acidic thoughts for long enough when she was stuck in bed and refused to let them ruin her good mood.

She lost herself among the fashion and fandom and funny posts- enough so that when Qrow waved a hand in front of her face she flinched and struck out with her Scroll still in hand.

He dodged by shifting his head back an inch and withdrawing his arm.

Oh Oum, did she really just…? Fuck.

"At least your reflexes are decent," he stood up. "Even if your attention span isn't."

Her heart thrumming in her throat, she smiled in an attempt to appease him. "Yes, Mr. Branwen? Did you need something?"

"Yeah, can you organize the evaluation forms in order of who's going when? If I have to look at another one before tomorrow, I'm going to jump off a cliff." He rolled his shoulders.

That was certainly… dramatic. But she'd said worse, so she couldn't really hold it against him.

"Of course," she packed her things and got up.

At his desk, she hunted for the forms and was pleased to note that each period had been bound with a binderclip even if they hadn't been labeled or stacked in any discernible order. Still, progress was progress, no matter how little or slow it was.

She took a small pad of sticky notes and labeled each stack. The students, thankfully, had the foresight to label their papers with which class they were in. From there, she went through and organized the papers according to who was being evaluated first. With five slots to a day, and classes presenting every day, she kept the calendar open to cross-reference everything. A-classes started tomorrow, and third years were first up; she wished them the best.

Her work was slow, and slightly tedious, but she made good progress by the time the bell rang so she didn't feel too bad that she didn't finish. She'd be back tomorrow anyways.

"See you tomorrow," she called.

"See ya," Branwen called back, from the print room.

 **-[-]-**

The next day, still obviously injured, Lumi gathered the will to step into first period history with Aryl. As expected, the teacher took one look at her and beckoned her to the desk.

"Morning, Ms. Aryl," Lumi greeted with a tight smile.

"Good morning, Lumi," she directed her gaze towards the cast. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay," she resisted the urge to hide her arm. "I got Monday's notes from Briar, but did I miss any handouts or announcements?" Please stop talking to me with your concerned teacher eyes.

"No, nothing of that sort," she pursed her lips. "Is… everything alright at home?"

Aryl wasn't the first teacher to ask her that, and would likely not be the last. She already dreaded Greene's class and any potential meetings with Mrs. Huang. It twisted her stomach in knots when they asked her questions. It's not as though it lead anywhere, just made Lumi feel awkward and slightly hostile.

"Yup," she popped the last letter.

"Okay," she redirected her attention to the papers on her desk.

Lumi didn't hesitate to leave.

Class passed as normal, though she caught Aryl sneaking glances towards the end. It was objectively sweet, and possibly heartwarming, that her teacher would be so concerned over Lumi's injury (and history of other, similar injuries) but again, that concern never resulted in real change. On one strange occasion, Child Protective Services had shown up to her house to investigate, but since she lived with her dad who was decidedly NOT abusing her, the case was dropped.

She brought her mind to focus long enough on Mr. Xiao Long's instructions, then tuned him out and did the modified workout. Because it was A-schedule, there were no spars today, but there would be a timed mile run soon.

The habit of not eating six plates after combat (unlike Briar) combined with the fact that her pain pills lessened her appetite further meant that Lumi's lunch was mostly spent reviewing things for Greene's class and fixing up her notes from Aryl's.

Highlighters; the brightest part of her day. Pun intended.

In Lit (or Language and Literature as the class was actually named), Greene assigned groups and topics. She didn't end up with Calypso or Briar- and they were placed in separate groups too- but she did get Deegan who was a fellow TA and relatively friendly. Their third group member was Linnae, an enthusiastic straight-A student.

Poor Briar ended up in a group with Claret. Lumi hoped a Grimm would eat him so her friend would be spared his asshole attitude then she looked at her arm and realized that was a shitty thing to wish on someone. She still hoped _something_ would take him out of class for a while because he was a terrible person.

With Linnae taking the lead, the assignment was quickly broken into its component parts and everyone was assigned their share. They spent the first half of the period working and the second half taking notes.

Fourth period rolled around between one blink and the next. Branwen wasn't in, so she plopped herself down at his desk and continued organizing all the evaluation forms. The "one working hand" thing was mildly inconvenient and painful, but people functioned perfectly well while missing entire limbs so she sucked it up and kept her grumbling to a minimum.

When done with that, and entering in anything Branwen hadn't yet, she pulled out her Scroll and opened Timblr. Between that and UsTube, she was kept entertained until the bell rang.

The rest of her week continued in the same way. With judicious use of Aura healing, she was well enough to lower her pill intake and eat semi-normal portions by her check-up on Sunday. That was the same day she finally removed her bandages, and felt her week could only get better.

Her conversations with Ruby had drifted from strictly weapons (and the girl was surprisingly knowledgeable despite her young age) to outfits and weapons. It was engaging and playful, which surprised her because she wasn't expecting it to be so easy to chat with the cheery girl.

Casual companionship aside, Lumi noticed on Monday that Branwen had been suspiciously absent during her TA period. If he showed up at all, it was only long enough to grab something or give her brief instructions then he was gone again.

She couldn't recall doing anything that would make him avoid her- and despite how much it _looked_ like he was avoiding her, it was almost insane to think he was. He held power, authority, age and life-experience over her in their relationship. If he wanted to, he could just send her back to Huang's loving embrace and get a new TA.

So what was up with him? What could make him change his behavior so much? Though she theorized for a good half hour, she came up empty handed and left to her room when the period ended with more questions than she started with.

 **-[-]-**

Qrow was totally avoiding his quiet little assistant and he knew it.

It wasn't that he was suddenly averse to being around her (which it totally looked like, but he wasn't, not really) but rather that a glaring reminder from his Semblance which prompted his decision to spend as little time as possible around her.

Which, yeah, did kinda mean that he didn't want to be around her at all, but-

He groaned and ran a hand through his hair. His avoiding her wouldn't be problem except for the fact that she perked up like a puppy whenever he entered the room- an obvious clue that she actually wanted him around, for some reason. Even that wouldn't be a problem, because as a self-styled "cool teacher" he had a healthy-sized group of students who looked up to him, _and yet_ it was a problem. A very big problem in fact- a lifelong problem.

He knew very little about Lumi, and what he did know came from their most recent interactions, but he couldn't recall her ever coming to school heavily injured like she had after break. He'd put money on it, in fact, which meant that her broken arm was because of _his_ semblance- and thus _his_ fault.

Wasn't that just fucked up? He couldn't even be around people without bringing misery into their life.

A small, nagging voice in the back of his head that sounded suspiciously like Taiyang pointed out that most people were hit with run of the mill bad luck, like drink lids not being all the way secured or running five minutes late, not Grimm attacks.

He drowned out the voice with a long drink from his flask. This was his pity party, dammit, no reasonableness allowed.

Qrow wallowed in his misfortune for a short while longer before he picked himself up and jumped down from the roof. He wasn't sure if it was his wild upbringing or some avian instinct of his, but he liked to be up high and outdoors whenever possible.

He strolled to his classroom and nodded at passing students who waved to him. Like he expected, the workshop was empty when he arrived. The evaluations were neatly stacked and labeled with an eye-gougingly bright orange sticky note.

Nice to know that despite his absence his TA would keep doing her job.

He flopped down into the office chair and settled in. He reached for the mouse and noticed the folded piece of paper tucked beneath it. That was new, he thought as he slipped the note from beneath the mouse. Was there a problem?

" _Mr. Branwen,_

 _If you make an alloy of an aura reactive/magnetic metal and a non-magnetic one, will it be magnetic? Should you make the handle of a weapon of a different metal than the blade?_

 _Thanks much,_

 _Lumi_."

Huh, that was out of left-field.

Well, he couldn't remember magnetic alloys off the top of his head so he pulled out the third year's textbook and flipped to the index. Tomorrow was B-schedule, so he'd see her before lunch. Hopefully he'd remember.

 **-[-]-**

Tuesday at lunch, Lumi pulled out her Scroll and opened up the Timblr conversation between herself and Ruby. She typed, with as much detail as she could remember, what Branwen had said about alloys.

As she had found out from their constant correspondence, Ruby was in the middle of preparing to make her own Huntress weapon. Her father had put his foot down about her making it before she turned thirteen, but theoretical research and drawings were okay. Also, her uncle was really good at making weapons, and had promised to her help her build her own when she was old enough, but he took a while to respond to texts unless he was in a chatty mood.

Thus, Lumi asked her weapons teacher. She hadn't expected such a quick response, especially since Branwen never seemed to be around lately, but that was another point for her mental tally of "he's not avoiding me, he's just busy."

She tucked her phone away and defended her plate of fries from Briar. The short blonde scowled and redirected her attention to her girlfriend's lunch. The trio chatted about class and classmates until lunch ended then made their way to third period.

There were thankfully no presentations or group projects in math class. The same was true of Lumi's TA class, and since Branwen was away, she found herself with time to work on the group project for Lit- or rather, to rehearse her part. Greene liked to call on groups randomly, and tomorrow was the first day of presentations, so roughly three-fourths of the class would be ready and the unprepared minority would be praying to whatever they believed in to avoid being called on.

She never understood people who waited to the absolute last second to finish their projects. Presentations were nerve-wracking enough as it was, why add an extra-layer of stress by being unprepared and unrehearsed?

Lumi fiddled with the computer controls to make the power point project against the wall. She stood, took a deep breath, and quickly clicked through the slides. When she got to her part, she took another breath and recited it from memory as best she could.

Her stomach tightened with nerves, but not unbearably. After she finished, she took a quick break then ran through it once more. Her father, and the internet, had given her a bunch of helpful tips and after her second try she felt steady and confident.

 **-[-]-**

Lumi laid in bed on Thursday night, satisfied with her day. Her presentation went off without a hitch- well, without any _major_ hitches- and her weapon was fine tuned for her evaluation tomorrow. On top of that, while her arm wasn't completely healed, she could draw the bowstring a couple times without issue which should be more than enough for a quick demonstration.

She burrowed further into her blanket and scrolled through UsTube for something to watch. In the middle of a video about a parrot who could meow like a cat, she received a text.

Briar: _did you find a cape for your cosplay tomorrow?_

What? What cos- Oh! Oh fuck! The bet!

Lumi: _No capes!_

Briar: _weak_

"Yeah, well, suck it up, buttercup," Lumi grumbled.

Lumi: _¯\\_(_ _ツ_ _)_/¯_

 _Hope you have my $$ ready_

They insulted each other for a few brief, but furious minutes then called it a night. Which is to say, Briar called it a night. Lumi got up and used her Scroll's flashlight to quietly rummage around in her wardrobe for all the parts of her Branwen cosplay. She laid the pieces on her desk chair and crawled back into bed. Why did she agree to such a dumb bet?

That same question was on her mind as she woke up the next morning and got ready. At least teachers didn't have meals with students, she consoled herself as she gathered breakfast. Even better, since it was a B-schedule day, she had Combat first period and it ran for an hour and a half. That was an hour and a half she could wear non-Branwen clothes. Also, she could always ditch fourth period and change into her normal clothes since it was her TA period, which was another hour and a half.

Suddenly, the bet didn't seem so bad; six thousand Lien for three hours of almost sort of cosplay. She was going to spend it all on something frivolous and dumb as a treat, she nodded, empowered by the thought.

Calypso, late to breakfast, threw herself down next to Lumi and sighed loudly. "I thought you would back out."

Lumi raised a brow. "Nice to know you think so highly of me."

"That's not what I meant," the taller girl waved a hand dismissively.

She hummed and continued eating her yogurt.

There was something… exciting about dressing like a teacher. It was like being the first to try a daring new make-up trend. People stared a little, whispered when she walked by, but it was a neutral/slightly positive sort of attention. As quiet as she was, even she liked a little attention from people from time to time. (Like her mother, especially when a Grimm was taking a bite out of her arm- whoops dark thought, go away.)

Also, like she reasoned to herself not half an hour earlier, it was only for a few small part of the day.

Briar frowned sourly when she caught sight of Lumi on their way to Combat. "I didn't think you'd do it."

Lumi threw arms up. "Does no one think I'd stick to my word?!"

Briar rolled her eyes. "I was hoping this would be one of those times where you wouldn't."

"I said the same thing," Calypso snickered.

"You both just wanted me to fail," Lumi deadpanned as they opened their lockers. "Such nice friends."

Calypso shrugged. "If you chickened out Briar was going to take me to the movies. If you didn't, we'd all get to see you dressed up. Win-win for me."

Lumi raised her face to the overhead lights and closed her eyes. She sighed and prayed in a stage-whisper, "Dear Universe, please grant me patience in these trying times."

"Dramatic ass," Briar's shot as she pulled on her workout t-shirt.

She shrugged and pulled her two tone hair into a high ponytail. Her bangs, which had been carefully styled to look casually messy, she left down. If was necessary to be at least a little dramatic to not only propose dressing like a teacher, but to do so with dedication to the littlest of details.

Like the eyeliner she was wearing.

Little details.

* * *

 **A/N** : That's all folks! Hope you lovely readers enjoyed. Please leave a review if you did :) If you want more of Lumi and Qrow's antics, please check out Cobwebs and Crows or the (unofficial) sequel to that story, Liminal.


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